Comments

Comment by Stormrage

I wonder if this just improves damage reduced by 5%, or 5% of 30, or if it will be redesigned.

Comment by caboom

Considering Stamina is again king and that most gem slots have quite crappy bonuses on tank gear, this gem comes out better in requirements vs bonuses compared to Austere Shadowspirit Diamond, making it a superior choice for shield users(particularly warriors as the above posters have mentioned).The tooltip is not clear but one way to read is(having in mind the way block value used to work) is that it evens out at an aditive 5% dmg reduction whenever you block, which might make it overpowered, but even if it's just 5% of your current block value(which will be high enough because mastery is our best defensive stat after stamina) it's still better than the armor boost since now armor is very scarce on gear. And last but not least this will most definetly benefit critical blocks as well(warriors only).

Comment by Imspecial

Cabooom & Kurtox are right here. This meta is best for both warrior's and paladins once your block is >42% (easily attainable in 333 gear). Requirements means easy gemming and with the way our block via mastery scales it will get better and better as the expanasion goes on.

Comment by intuit

I haven't tested it yet myself, but I doubt it's actually 5% shield block value. On beta, it was reduced to I think 1%. That makes more sense, since 5% more damage blocked from a meta is absolutely ridiculously overpowered since any smart block tank will be unhittable fairly quickly in this xpac. That would mean every single hit that lands is reduced by 5%. WAY more powerful than the 2% armor meta.

Someone confirm/deny whether this actually gives the 5% block value? You can test by scrolling over the block area in your character sheet.

Comment by scr00chy

I've heard this meta is currently bugged and only gives 1% SBV. Can someone confirm or deny that?

Comment by Voxxel

the spell that comes from the tooptip says 1% clearly.That could be wrong, old data, etc, still.

Comment by Fires

It could be a bug or it could be that is it 5% of the 30% which would be 1.5% increase, so its showing up as 1% more.

Comment by Lucifra

I made a ticket about it, it's supposed to give 1% BV, the tooltip is just bugged.

Also, it not increasing to 2% with holy shield up makes sense since holy shield is a buff, not a permanent stat.

I've submitted the ticket as a screenshot, you might see it in some time.

Comment by morghax

GM said it is supposed to be 1%...Gimme 2% armor then any time ;/

Comment by Atrea

It's important to remember that armor's damage reduction is dependent upon the attacker's level.The tooltip from armor on your character pane indicates the damage reduction from level 85 sources, and not level 88 (boss level) sources.

With 2% additional armor - and bear in mind, the 2% additional armor from items is based on the items, not any talent you may have - the increase is negligible.

Currently, we're looking at about 32,000 armor from gear, give or take, for full 346 geared tanks with shields.(I mention shields, because for Death Knights and Druids, block value is meaningless, and Austere Shadowspirit Diamond is pretty much their only real choice.)Please don't respond to this with something stupid like, "You're stupid Atrea, I have 40k armor in my character pane, in 346 gear", because we aren't counting armor from talents or abilities.And yes, you may have slightly more, depending on your trinkets. You might also have slightly less.32,000 is the ballpark figure, though. (I currently have 31.7, with no armor trinkets, but several ilvl 359 pieces.)

As such, with 32,000 armor, your gain from 2% armor from items is simple; 640.

Now, let's assume, with all your talents, armor buffs (Devotion Aura or Stoneskin, whatever you like), you can reach a total of 40000. (Yes, I realize you can reach a bit higher if you truly try. However, let's just pick 40000 for the hell of it.)

According to the formula I listed above, against a level 85 target, 40k armor reduces incoming physical damage by 60.54%However, against a level 88 target, it only reduces it by 55.12%

Now, let's apply the Austere Shadowspirit Diamond.You gain 640 armor.Against a level 85 target, 40640 armor reduces incoming physical damage by 60.92%. A gain of .38% damage reduction.Against a level 88 target, it only reduces it by 55.51%. This is a difference of .39%

Ultimately, in order for Austere Shadowspirit Diamond to be more worthwhile than Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond, gear would have to improve to the point that you gained enough armor from items (before talent modifiers and abilities) to exceed a damage reduction bonus from the gem significantly higher than your shield block chance, divided by 100.

To put it into practice, if you block 1% 40% of the time, you are reducing damage by .40%

Ergo, SBC x 0.01 = DR from 1% SBV.

RIght now, against a level 88 target, a flat .39% damage reduction is easily eclipsed by a 1% increase in shield block value. Mastery is abundant enough on gear, and can be reforged, to vastly increase your shield block chance beyond 39%.

Furthermore, the requirement of Austere Shadowspirit Diamond, two yellow gems, while not insanely awful, does cause a little strife, in that yellow gems are typically not socketed unless in yellow sockets, and even then, only if the socket bonus is worthwhile - the definition of which varies from player to player. The point is, however, if you switch out gear that has the yellow socket for one with a blue or red, you may have to re-gem your gear again, or even skip socket bonuses - which, with anything other than a blue gem, is an awful decision to make.

To summarize, until later tiers produce enough armor on items to grant more damage reduction from a 2% increase to their value, than a 1% of your block chance, Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond is the meta gem of choice if you are a shield user.

Comment by davenrothz

I don't know why it shows 1% when the tooltip states 5%. For a paladin, it should be at least 2% if multiplied against the 40% block value (with holy shield up). I also couldn't find any blue stating anything regarding this. I looked on EJ & Maintankadin, but nothing (perhaps I'm search declined?). I've also followed pre-cata releases pretty regularly, and I don't remember anything being said about this (or post cata of course).

Comment by Thels

It would effectively be more than 5%. (Assuming that with effective we mean the amount of damage we take with this meta in comparison to the amount of damage we take without this meta.)

Say a boss hits you for 1000 damage, after all reductions but block have been applied.

You're a warrior and you block. You take 700 damage. Now if you had the additional 5% damage reduction, you only take 650 damage, reducing that 700 by 50 or 7.14%.

Likewise, you're a paladin and you block with HS up. You take 600 damage. With the meta it would be 550. The 600 is reduced by 50 or 8.33%.

Of course, that applies to the 5% extra block value, which we are unlikely to see. The same would apply to 1%, but the numbers would be much smaller.

700 > 690 = -1.42%600 > 590 = -1.67%

Comment by TehScat

I think it is safe to agree that if this was 5% SBV, it would be grossly overpowered. In a game where fractions of a single percentile are optimized and enchanted for, having such a huge improvement on blocks would make this meta a no brainer. At 1%, its competitive with the Austere meta, and still better for many tanks given our preference for Mastery.

And yes, its additive in the same way Holy Shield is. Its not "5% on my 40% block with HS is 1.05*0.4=0.42", its "base + HS + meta 0.3+0.1+0.01=0.41". Don't try to spin it another way. Math doesn't bend.

I find it funny that the gem requirement is 3 blues, and the Austere (armor) version is 2 yellow. To optimize a given gear set for either, you'd want those swapped around. If I were stacking mastery for this gem, 2 yellow requirement would be trivial, and likewise for stacking EH (read: stamina) for the Austere with 3 blues.

As a new-school avoidance/block tank, having happily discarded the old, tired concept of stacking stamina as soon as healers found their blue bar moved again, I love this meta. Unfortunately, neither this nor the armor version help in the slightest with Chimaeron.

Comment by nicefig

@AtreaYou have a flawed understanding of armor mechanics. You cannot simply compare %DR values with and without the austere metagem.

According to the formula I listed above, against a level 85 target, 40k armor reduces incoming physical damage by 60.54%However, against a level 88 target, it only reduces it by 55.12%

Now, let's apply the Austere Shadowspirit Diamond.You gain 640 armor.Against a level 85 target, 40640 armor reduces incoming physical damage by 60.92%. A gain of .38% damage reduction.Against a level 88 target, it only reduces it by 55.51%. This is a difference of .39%

You cannot compare 55.12%DR and 55.51%DR and say that Austere provides .39%DR. The proper math for the DR from the metagem at 40k armor for un unblocked hit: 1-= 0.869%DR. Note that this is much larger than the .39 value you came up with. When handling math with DR values, you need to convert them to damage taken (1-DR%), then when you're done comparing those variables (division), convert back to damage reduction (1-differenceInDamagetaken).

Another common misconception about armor is that its worth has diminishing returns. This is not true. The %DR has diminishing returns, but the value of armor in terms of Time-to-live does not diminish. ie, 400 armor increases your average lifespan the same amount as when you're wearing cloth as when you're decked out with 45k armor. Intuitively, you can imagine that with %DR diminishing returns in place, it takes an infinite amount of added armor to go from 99%DR to 100%DR. But note that your average lifespan also increases to infinity if you do in fact hit 100%DR. If you plot a graph of armor against armor DR, you will see a curve of diminishing returns. However, armor against TTL is linear.

This points out another flaw with your post, which implies that the value of austere shadowspirit changes with your current armor value; on the contrary it does not. The %DR numbers on your tooltip with and without the meta will constantly change depending on your gear, but the value of the gem will always be 0.869%DR. Go ahead and use different armor DR values and use the math equation I provided earlier.

Eternal shadowspirit, on the other hand: Take paladin with holyshield with standard block value of 0.4. The eternal meta changes this to 0.41 (additive). Using the same formula, the presence of this meta gives us 1-=1.67%DR, provided the attack is blocked. If the attack is not blocked, ESD was useless for you then, and the flat rate for ASD @0.869 would have been better.

Now let's just compare 1.67 and 0.869. For ESD to be at least as good as ASD, we need ESD's expected value to be at least 0.869, which gives tells me I need my ESD to be applied at least 52.1% of the time if the incoming hit isnt avoided. What this means is, of the attacks that you didnt avoid, your chance of blocking an attack must be at least slightly more than half.

eg:

1) 25%avoidance, 39%block, 36%hittable.=>39%block, 75% didnt avoid, this is more than 52.1%, thus ESD is better2) 25% avoidance, 37%block, 38%hittable=>obviously you will get hit more often than you block. thus ASD is better3) 32% avoidance, 34%block, 30%hittable=>ESD better

TLDR:As long as you block more often than you get hit, ESD is better. For prot pallies of course.

Comment by Budlaorf

Well after all the posts on these meta gems, I've decided to go with Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond. With all the spell dmg I've seen out there I'm gonna give this a shot.

Comment by melwil

Considering all the math up there, where they assume that paladins have really sad block chances, and no attack is ever avoided in other ways, I'd say that once you creep towards 102,4% avoidance, there's no doubt that Eternal is far better than Austere?

When every attack that is not missed, dodged or parried is blocked, it makes the damage reduction quite good. Also, a paladin with 25% miss+dodge+parry and 45% block has way more than 50% effective block chance? If you have 25% other avoidance, and 45% block, doesn't it mean that out of 100 attacks, you take no damage from 25 of them, and you block 45 of the others; doesn't that mean you really block 60% of attacks that aren't being completely avoided? Shouldn't that be worked into the math?

One little PS; could someone try to calculate the benefits of Eternal meta if you have 102.4% avoidance? let's say miss+dodge+parry adds up to about somewhere between 25-30%, rest is blocked. I'm not good at math, but that equation would be usefull too!

Comment by Vessyr

If you have 25% other avoidance, and 45% block, doesn't it mean that out of 100 attacks, you take no damage from 25 of them, and you block 45 of the others; doesn't that mean you really block 60% of attacks that aren't being completely avoided?

No, that means you block 45% of the attack because 25% are completely avoided. Earlier when people were talking about needing a certain block % before this meta is better. They mean that you need to block that amount of attacks not being completely avoided. You need 102.4 avoidance so that no attack hits you for full. So if you have 25% avoidance and 45% block... 102.4 - 25 = 77.4

Now if you have 45% block... that means you are blocking 45 / 77.4 = 58.14% of the incoming attacks that are actually landing. That is the number they are using because completely avoiding an attack has no effect other than reducing the denominator in the equation.

One little PS; could someone try to calculate the benefits of Eternal meta if you have 102.4% avoidance? let's say miss+dodge+parry adds up to about somewhere between 25-30%, rest is blocked. I'm not good at math, but that equation would be usefull too!

In that example the meta is worth exactly the 1%. If all attacks that land are blocked. Then you will take exactly 1% less damage with this meta vs no meta. Assuming the other math is correct the other meta was worth .869. Blocking every attack makes this meta 1.

That is why they were figuring out what amount of incoming attacks you would have to block to eclipse the .869.

Comment by TAL333

I'd like to point out that the armor gem stacks multiplicatively with Toughness (I checked it in-game doing some spec and helm switching :P). It sadly also does not affect, as some of you may already know, the armor the cloak enchant provides :(.Also, more to the reason I made this post, nicefig, you are so wrong.

First off, the damage reduction given by the austere shadowspirit diamond, strictly speaking, is NOT constant, as you say, at 0.869%, being defined by the equation Armor * 0.02 / , which approaches 0.02 / 1.02 as armor goes to infinity. That may not be very significant but the damage mitigation provided by this gem, defined as, uhm, the ratio between damage taken with it and damage taken without it, actually increases with gear, although armor's probably not going to get high enough from here for it to not be quite negligible.Yes, if you had actually put the numbers in the math equation you provided, as you told Atrea to do, you would've realized you are wrong. (Seriously, are you trolling?)

Secondly, you consider that amount of mitigation to be independent of the block chance, whereas you should take into account that, since the block mitigation is multiplicative with the armor mitigation, the mitigation provided by armor is actually worth less damage when you block, since it's only mitigating 70(warrior) or 60(paladin) percent of the actual damage. There is also another problem, which I'm happy has already been pointed out by direddyre :D, where you compare the damage mitigation of the armor gem on a hit with the damage mitigation of the block gem on a block, the former relative to the hit damage and the latter relative to the block-mitigated damage.

Forgive me if I've focused too much on nicefig's errors, it simply bothers me very much when people who have not much clue what they're talking about start bashing other people, despite whether they may be wrong or not; I try to be a friendly poster :), except for those who deserve it. (I'm still a bit afraid I'm feeding the trolls here though).

There are some other major things to consider, such as armor buffs (devotion aura or stoneskin totem), the above mentioned cloak enchant which do not scale with the armor gem, and armor provided by trinkets (which, as I understand, do not scale either, I'm not entirely sure so I'll edit this post once I get my hands on one to confirm, or if anyone else does :P).

Now, to actually compare both gems' value, in terms of average damage reduction :P. Say hit chance is "H", block chance "B", your block value "V" and the armor gem damage reduction "A" (relative to the damage taken without the gem). Unfortunately it's kinda hard to define the value of the warrior's block since cooldowns change it during the fight, and can't simply say an average because it's (if done smartly :P) used at times of different incoming damage.

A can be calculated using the equation 0.02 * a / (1,02 * a + e + L) where a is your base armor, e the extra, non-scaling armor and L a constant defined by the attacker's level (2167.5 * level -158167.5), (remember that raid bosses are taken to be 3 levels over the cap, so 88) as was said earlier by Atrea.

Taking the damage, as mitigated by armor without the armor from the austere shadowspirit diamond, as 100%, the armor gem should reduce damage by: (A*H + A*(1-V)*B)%. The block value gem (which I'll assume is worth 1.5% block value, though I'm not clear on that) would reduce damage by (0.015*B)%.This is calculated as a percentage of the boss' armor-mitigated damage without the gem, to see it as a percentage of the average damage taken without the gem you have to of course divide it by it, which is, as you know, 1 - - 0.4 * B. You have to remember than on mobs higher level than you miss is pushed off the table in favor of hit (2.4% miss in the case of a raid boss, reducing the mob's chance to miss you to 2.6%).

Now, to place my paladin as an example, who has roughly 34800 armor that actually scales, plus his cloak enchant and devotion aura, A is worth ~0.961% reduction for raid bosses. Albeit, sometimes I might decide to use a different aura, increasing the value of this gem, and maybe there's a holy paladin that decides to activate aura mastery with devotion aura, briefly lowering the value of the gem, but I won't take that into account.He has 28.25% avoidance and 48.91% block, meaning a 25.24% chance to be hit. Also, it's fair to say his holy shield will be up at all times, making his block value 40% (note that, as I understand it, the 5% block value bonus from the block gem is applied before the increase of the buff).To him, the eternal shadowspirit diamond (the block gem :P) would be worth ~0.733% average mitigation, or ~1,23% of the average damage taken without it, and the austere shadowspirit diamond (armor meta) would be worth ~0.525%, or ~0,961% of the average damage taken without it, average mitigation.So, on a perfectly normal scenario, with no, say, armor debuffs or whatever, the block value gem would be worth ~0.208% (~0,381% of the average damage taken without it) more average mitigation than the armor gem for me :D.

Okay, so eternal shadowspirit diamond seems like the winner. I have to, however, point out that, although it's average mitigation is higher, it only mitigates when you block, allowing for, as far as it influences your mitigation, spikier damage. I say this because the reason a lot of tanks, myself included, are looking to stack mastery is not because it grants more average mitigation than dodge or parry (although, because of diminishing returns on these, it eventually does), but because they are trying to even out damage, and hoping to, some day, reach 102.4% block+avoidance and be unhittable.So after this I'm still debating whether I should take it or not >.<.

I am aware that I didn't explain how armor translates into damage reduction, but it seems off-topic and would make this comment considerably lengthier (and it already is very much so :P).

I might edit this later and add some numeric values :), I'm so very tired right now. done :Dedit: would just like to remind you that I considered the block value bonus of the eternal shadowspirit diamond to be 1.5%, as indicated by the tooltip, but since some say it's bugged and it's actually 1%. If it's 1%, it'll take a while for the eternal shadowspirit diamond to reach the armor meta in average mitigation, but blizzard should fix the bug soon enough anyway :P.edit: corrected typos.

Comment by gsmooth

Jeez guyz. It appears that many of you have taken tremendous amount of effort to back up your convictions. Though i greatly appreciate the effort and dedication to your theocraft (whatever the terminology is here), a simple A > B or A < B would've have done it for me. maybe its just me but i was more confused about what is what then when before i read some of these comments. I truly feel like a need a PhD in math before i even attempt to understand WTF you are saying.

Comment by gsmooth

Jeez guyz. It appears that many of you have taken tremendous amount of effort to back up your convictions. Though i greatly appreciate the effort and dedication to your theocraft (whatever the terminology is here), a simple A > B or A < B would've have done it for me. maybe its just me but i was more confused about what is what then before i read some of these comments. I truly feel like i need a PhD in math before i even attempt to understand WTF you are saying.

In other words, the armor gem's value increase with your armor and decrease with the level of the enemies, while the block gem's value increase with your block chances and your total avoidance.

Comment by leadfeather89

I flipped a coin.

Comment by generalanders

None of this information makes sense. Please thumbs-down because good information is in a later post.

Comment by Glorimrael

Interesting how so many people spend so much time arguing on Thottbot/Wowhead, about the minuscule differences between gems, spending ages plugging numbers through formulas, accusing others of having flawed math when they themselves likely also have flawed math. I mean, thanks for all the work guys, but it's a bit crazy when there are 4 people arguing over which formula to use, and most of us probably won't read through a post that's half a mile long.

Will the healer be able to tell the difference between your .38% of additional long term damage reduction, and 2% additional armor? I highly doubt it. In all but the very most extreme cases, it won't make a difference in whether you live or get crushed. Pick whichever gem you feel like using, and go play.

Comment by starkaas

I'm going to flip a coin too.

Comment by Stunter

Best tanking meta if you're close to hit immunity(102.4% avoidance).Every incoming hit is being fully avoided or blocked so it decreases phisycal dmg by ~1%

Comment by arij177

To clarify, this meta adds 1% to the damage mitigated per block. So instead of 30% it is 31% for a warrior. In my gear (Full BiS Heroic 391/397) this meta compared to the armor one gives: TankPoints: 1578218Effective Health: 558108Burst Time: 721.143Time To Live: 34.434Total reduction: 86.35%

Comment by zeroshens

it's easy, this gem is for tanks that use shields. block is a large part of their tanking mechanic, and is very effective for reducing your incoming damage. in cata, you should be going for dodge/parry and of course lots of mastery for block.

the math above should show you that as your gear improves, so will this gem. don't forget about critical blocks, which this will improve as well.

if you are a druid or death knight, you should use the austere shadowspirit diamond. it improves your physical damage taken (armor increase) and your ability to take magical damage (stamina).